It was a warm summer night - Suddenly there was a sob - Fruela series
by Borys68
Summary: Two young Heralds find Herald Toitila with a baby in his room. Will their visit trigger a latent Gift in the grumpy Herald? Should be rated "S" for silliness. The world is Mercedes Lakey's, the bad ideas and poor writing is mine. Typos and bad grammar lovingly exterminated by Androidilenya.


Toitila was enjoying his leave. During the break, the Collegium was almost deserted, and (hopefully) nobody would intrude.

Stripped to the waist he looked at the girl lovingly and began to undress her. He was an experienced man by now, and no longer worried that bending an appendage would break it. To the contrary, he found younglings to be extraordinarily flexible in the most unexpected places. Once she was undressed, he ran his big, calloused hands over her body, touching her in all the right places to produce a giggle. She gurgled with delight. He than proceeded to wipe her body clean with a cloth dipped in warm water.

Once she was dressed and the whole operation of getting her ready for bed was over, the expression of bliss on her face and his keen nose told him that he must start again. He repeated the undressing, cleaning, and then dressing. With his tongue stuck out and a frown of concentration he went through the process of this tiny arm goes into this too narrow sleeve here, and this little arm goes ...

He thought of his foster daughter fondly. She had a baby every eighteen months or so. She appeared to have milk for a year only, though. Hence, with Amalasvinta weened he could take care of her second and let Fruela have a good night's sleep. Number three was on the way already ...

He settled down in the armchair and placed Reciberga on his left arm. Her head near his elbow, while her bottom was firmly in his hand. Toitila loved to watch babies feeding. Their whole being seemed to be focused upon the act – FEED! This was the part of babysitting which he liked best.

The little one was sucking for all her life on the bottle and making all sorts of sucking sounds and oinks of contentment. He felt that disregarding the instructions – he had put three dollops of honey in the milk instead of the prescribed one – had something to with it. More WAS better, and this was proof. During his previous leave he had overfed Amalasvinta and no harm came to her from that. He will cheerfully overfeed her sister, too. This was a time honoured provildge of grandparents and he had every intention to abuse it in regard to Fruela's and Zventibold's children.

He saw and he felt her little tummy grow in size. Once she had finished the bottle he arranged her on his left chest in an upright position to avoid posetting. She flattened herself against his chest and dozed off. He soon followed suit.

.

Heralds Vanessa and Brunwalda were bored. They had finished the wine Vanessa kept in her room while celebrating their reunion after their Internship Circuits. Freshly back from eighteen months in the backwoods of Valdemar, they felt a strong need for socializing. For song. For music. For dance. For company.

They set out to hunt down any Heralds who might be in the building. Vanessa knocked on a door through which she thought she had heard snoring the previous evening. They heard a sleepy "Come in" and gleefully barged in. There was a man inside.

Squee!

He was big and half naked.

SQUEE!

And he was holding a sleeping baby.

CUTENESS OVERLOAD.

"Who are you?" he whispered, laying a finger on his lips and casting a glance at the child, imploring them to keep their voices low. "What's the matter?"

.

Toitila had had enough of the two Heralds. Once they stopped cooing over Reciberga they began to ask him personal questions. They refused to believe that she was not his and pressed him to reveal who her true mother is. And why and where had he left her. And this accompanied with oh-so-accidental brushing against him or touching. This was getting irksome. An idea how to get rid of the tiresome Sister-Heralds came to him.

- "I see that you are too smart to be put off by wool pulling. I will tell you the truth, then." And he launched into his best tale of most heartfelt woe, eyes wide and (he hoped) full of apparently honest sorrow.

... She was the fairest and kindest maiden in Springfield ... her pure heart was incapable of grasping such base thoughts ... and she was betrayed again ... such malice was beyond her ...his respectful courtship had made her experience True Love ... a union of heart of spirit ... leaving her for that other woman ... her heart broken again ... afraid of loving, of being loved again ... equating love with pain ... in spite of her experience she felt hoped against hope that she might be indeed be loved by someone ... he did all he could to prove the purity of his intentions ... he howled and cried torn between love and duty ... when he finally could come back to her it was too late. The giving of life to the fruit of their love had killed her. She was fading away in front of his eyes. She was as white as the sheets covering her. She moved her lips and he bent over her to hear. She died with his name on her lips. He took Reciberga out of her stiffening and cooling arms and never looked back at Springfield again.

He pushed the quietly bawling women out the door, yawned with satisfaction, checked the cot, sniffed inquisitively - all clear, this time - and went to bed.

.

Toitila began to suspect something was amiss when a Grey glomped him in the corridor, sniffed, "You poor thing!" into his arm and scampered away before he had time to react. She left him a wet snot-centred patch on his sleeve – conveniently he could blame it on Reciberga – and in a state of bewilderment.

With a sense of foreboding he checked to see if Piast was in conversation range.

-_You've never told me you have the Bardic Gifts, my Chosen_.- His Companion sounded quite amused. - _What have you told those Heralds? Their Companions had been bugging me for details about you. They even woke me up! They hinted at you having a tragic past, of suffering some personal tragedy. Something I've been oblivious of, unless you count that time when they were serving pigs knuckles in honey - and garlic, _the Herald added absent mindedly_ - and you were on Healers' orders to stick to watery broth_.-

- _And what have you told them?_-

- _I wasn't sure what your intentions towards Heralds Vanessa or Brunwalda were, so I played the mystery card – that there are things about you which I cannot reveal. The pigs' knuckles doubtless fall into this category, as you were particularly sad and dejected on that day. And since the morn at least half a dozen other Companions – of Greys too - have asked me more or less the same question. You are the talk of the Field._-

- _Seems I overdid it_. – Toitila let out a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a groan and summarized the cooked-up-on-the-spot sob story he had used to get rid of his "guests" last night.

- _You were mean_. – Piast's reaction startled him. An instance later he was deafened and blinded by the stallion's screaming laughter. - _Chosen, you really should try for the Bardicum_. – He snickered. – _And you will get Bardic immunity with it_ – (snicker snicker) – _You might need it_.

_And your looks make you believable_ - the Companion continued.

- _Eh?_

- _You look too homely_ ...

- _You mean "too dumb looking" .._.

- ... _to be able to spin a yarn like that_.

With a sense of doom, Toitila with the baby on his arm headed towards the part of the Palace where the medium level staff lived.

.

"Toitila, you idiot!" Fruela screamed through her tears, breathless with laughter. "You simply can't tell women such stories!" She laughed again, adding, "Not unless you wish to be swamped with well wishing souls anxious to comfort you and become the girl's mother at the same time."

Toitila blinked. Of all the reactions he had expected, laughter had been the least likely. At least Freula seemed to be taking this well.

She wiped her eyes and brought her laughter under control. "There is a type of woman – not so uncommon - who would simply love to be the SPECIAL ONE mending your broken heart and saving you for the world and - with a sweet little thing to be adopted in the mix – you are twice as attractive to them! You mean old man! Two young women, impressionable, with some wine in them and thus even more impressionable – and you telling them a story like that? Shame on you!"

He hung his head, trying to avoid her laughing gaze.

She shook her head. "Broken hearts are a serious thing, that's no joking matter" she said, and he looked up, hoping she had concluded her lecture. "You better go and straighten this out before it turns sour."

"You should go out more, too."


End file.
